JUPITER MOUNTAIN
13,830 ft.
July 18, 2004
By Tim Briese
Brian and I drove to Durango on Friday evening, disheartened after our failed attempt to climb Gladstone Peak that morning. We had arrived at the Silver Pick Trailhead at 5:00 a.m. only to find that the route had just been closed by landowner Rusty Nichols. We salvaged the day by going instead to the Bilk Basin Trailhead and attempting a different, longer route to Gladstone, and made it all the way to 12,700 feet just below Gladstone=s northeast face, but the summit eluded us because the later start caused us to be turned back by threatening weather. The next day we planned to ride the train from Durango to Needleton and backpack to Chicago Basin to climb Jupiter Mountain. We hoped for better success on Jupiter.
After a three hour train ride on Saturday morning we arrived at Needleton at 11:50 and struck off up the fine Needle Creek Trail toward Chicago Basin. A conductor on the train told us that 100 backpackers had just come out of the Basin, but there appeared to be only ten or so going in today. Brian took the lead and did a masterful job of setting a steady, relentless pace as we lugged our packs up the trail. We hardly stopped as we climbed about 2800 feet of elevation on the six mile hike up to Chicago Basin in about three and a half hours.
When we reached 11,000 feet in lower Chicago Basin we came to a place where a tributary stream came in from the right and joined Needle Creek. We left the main trail and made a tricky crossing of Needle Creek just above the confluence of the streams and found a splendid campsite a hundred yards up in the woods between the two creeks. Brian had camped in the same spot when he was here a couple of years before. We briefly considered climbing Jupiter that evening but decided we did not have enough time or good enough weather.
After setting up camp I decided to go on a hike to explore upper Chicago Basin while Brian rested at camp. I headed steeply uphill on a trail to the southeast above the tributary creek, the same route we would take in the morning on our way to Jupiter. Aztec Mountain (13,310') was an impressive sight a mile to the south. After a little less than a mile this trail intersected the Columbine Pass Trail at 11,680 feet, and I followed it to the right a few hundred yards as it climbed above timberline. I found a nice flowery spot in a sunny meadow and sat down to enjoy the stunning grandeur of the scenery surrounding me. The view of Eolus, Twin Thumbs, and Sunlight and Windom was breathtaking. A mile to the northeast lay Jupiter, and I studied the route we would take to climb it in the morning. Chicago Basin is one of the most beautiful places I have visited in all of my hikes in Colorado, and this vantage point from the Columbine Pass Trail afforded me a grand perspective of it all. This was truly a sublime moment for me.
After resting in the golden sunlight for a while I headed back to camp. I decided to take the longer, gentler Columbine Pass Trail back down into the valley and the connecting Needle Creek Trail back to camp. This afforded me a fine loop hike of the entire upper basin. The evening sunlight played masterfully on the meadows in the Needle Creek Valley and the craggy summits above. I passed four or five campsites of other backpackers and saw some of the Basin=s familiar white goats along the way. At 7 p.m. I returned to camp.
Just before sunset Brian and I noticed a couple down by the stream below our camp taking photos, and Brian went down to chat with them. They told him that they were working on an article for National Geographic Adventure Magazine. They had climbed Eolus that day and were packing out to ride the train to Silverton the next morning. The last rays of sunlight glowed upon the peaks to the southwest, in a splash of color that provided a magnificent finish for this fine day.
Brian and I rose early the next morning and headed up the trail from camp a few minutes after 5:30 in the faint light of dawn. We took the steep trail above the side creek that I had been on the evening before. After a half hour we crossed the Columbine Pass Trail and continued northeast toward Jupiter. We strolled through tall grass and lush, leafy plants for a quarter of a mile to the base of Jupiter=s grassy southwest slopes at 12,000 feet. We picked our way around a few rocky outcroppings and rapidly climbed up the grassy slopes to a minor saddle at 12,900 feet on Jupiter=s west ridge, where we were afforded an impressive view of Eolus and Windom off to the north. We continued climbing upwards along the right side of the easy ridge on grass and gravelly scree to a false summit at 13,780 feet.
At this point we were only 200 feet from the summit, but the view of the rest of the rugged route was Astartling@ , as Roach so aptly describes it. The Class 2+ scramble was a lot of fun, though, as we downclimbed to a small saddle and then climbed up over the crest of a ridge toward the summit, following Roach=s impeccable directions.
We stepped on the small, blocky summit at 8:15, and were treated to an incredibly scenic panorama all around in the golden early morning light. I was immediately filled with pure alpine exhilaration, and Brian seemed to share my sentiments. Windom was most impressive a half mile to the north, with Sunlight and Jagged etching the sky beyond. A frozen lake lay to the east below Windom, a remote body of water that is reported to be one of the very highest lakes in the United States. To the northwest was Eolus, Pigeon, Twin Thumbs, and Monitor Peak. To the east we could see Rio Grande Pyramid, which we had just been on three days before, and Mt. Oso (13,684'), a high summit that rises in the very heart of the vast Weminuche Wilderness Area. To the south was a postcard view of Hazel Lake and McCauley Peak (13,554'). Visibility was so good that I could faintly make out the Blue Mountain Range in Utah, a hundred miles away. It was pleasant and calm on top, and we lounged about, enjoying this splendid summit experience to the utmost. It was good that we were here early in the morning, because some low, moist clouds drifted over from time to time, a sign that convective buildup and thunderstorms were likely later.
After a magnificent hour on the summit we left and began our descent at 9:15. The scramble back to the false summit was just as much fun as it had been on the ascent, and we blazed down the grassy slopes back to the Columbine Pass Trail, descending 2100 feet to the idyllic meadows of the upper basin in only an hour. Jupiter=s green slopes now glowed brilliantly above us in the morning sunlight. We decided to take the scenic Columbine Pass Trail back to camp as I had done the evening before. This route was well worth the extra bit of distance and time that it took. After hiking through flowery meadows in the upper Needle Creek Valley we encountered a herd of white goats and stopped to take some photos.
At 11:15 we returned to camp and proceeded to pack up, all the while under the watchful eye of more goats who paid us a visit. A few minutes before noon we shouldered our packs and headed back down the Needle Creek Trail. Sure enough, thunderstorms rolled in and wetted us down on the hike out. At 2:20 we returned to Needleton and waited for the train to take us back to Durango, concluding another fine climbing trip in the beautiful San Juans.
